Understanding the Seated liberty dollar
The history of silver coin making in the US is a long and interesting one. Ever since 1794 when the government issued silver dollars for the first time, people have been keen on collecting these coins both for investment and personal purposes.
Silver dollar actually became the term which was used to refer to any large white metal coin that was issued by the US government. It had to have a face value of one whole dollar.
The purists however argue that for a dollar coin to be categorized as a silver dollar coin it must have some amount of the metal. This is both the most popular yet the rarest of all silver dollar coins to be found in the US.
One of the most sought after silver dollar coins amongst collectors is the 1804 silver dollar. In actual fact this coin has the date 1803 printed on it due to a mishap although the date of their first issue was definitely 1804.
The 1804 silver dollar served an important function not only as usable currency in it’s day, but the coin was also seen to have aesthetic value and this is attested to by the fact that US diplomats would often present them as gifts to rulers of various countries in Asia.
Today 1804 silver dollars are very hard to come by. In fact most estimates say there are only around twenty or so in the world. If you did by some chance happen to find one of these coins in the attic you could easily get more than two million dollars for it.
The seated liberty dollar is another special set of coins that was introduced in the year 1840. It was minted in relatively large quantities during the initial years but the minting steadily declined with the introduction of newer coins.
During most of the 1800′s the value of one dollar was greater than the cost of the silver used to mint a single coin. Once this changed however, and the value of the raw silver reached over a dollar the days of the silver dollars became numbered.
The silver dollar was the preferred currency with many merchants in Asia where it stayed on in use while it’s popularity in the Us dwindled. This changed in the 1870′s when due to a fall in silver prices the silver dollar came back into use in the US again.
The silver trade dollar was a popular currency when most of the major powers in the world were relying on the minting and issuance of silver coins to fund their empires activities. Britain, Spain and France all minted their own silver coins.
The Us silver dollar trade coin was minted with a higher and more pure content of silver than previous coins. This is because it came into being when silver coins were the primary medium of international exchange and there was a great deal of competition in this regard.
Because the US had an increasingly growing amount of trade with several Asian countries at the time the trade dollar was minted, most of the dollars ended up in Asian countries.
The trade dollar had a sale value of $5 in the USA when it was issued. However, it should be noted that the trade dollar was never actually issued to be used as internal currency within the USA.
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